Galen Erso is the scientist/engineer who provided background research as well as practical application for the giant lasers on Darth Vader's Death Star, and father of rebel fighter Jyn Erso.

He starts his scientific career with work on generating artificial kyber crystals (the substance that powers the lightsabers of the Jedi) in the hope of providing cheap energy to billions of people around all over the Republic, then later re-orients his work towards new applications for actual kyber, as his first project proves to be undoable. In fact, he discovers that kyber has something of an individual personality, each crystal working and reacting differently, and handling the substance affects him -- which suggests that he is slightly Force sensitive, as otherwise he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Later on, he is first tricked by Orson Krennic into working on kyber related energy deployment, ostensibly for the Republic rebuilding after the Clone Wars. When he finds out that his research and inventions are used to build giant laser cannons for the empire, he leaves and tries to hide, but is captured by Krennic and forced to work on the construction of the actual Death Star, which is actually hardly more than a space-borne base for his lasers.

Galen’s personal life is quite simple -- he deeply loves his wife Lyra and probably has never been with another person before and during their life together. They have a little daughter, Jyn, who is the one most important person to him ever, and whom he affectionately nicknames ‘Stardust’. When Orson Krennic finds the family in their self-imposed exile as farmers on the planet Lah’mu, he has Lyra killed while Jyn escapes to be found by rebel leader Saw Gerrera, whom Galen contacted when he realised the Empire was coming for him. He cooperates with the Empire in the hope that they won’t go after his daughter as long as he is being ‘good’, and for that gets his own research facility on the remote planet Eadu, which of course also serves to keep him and his team of scientists from escaping.

However, Galen’s conscience continues to plague him for his work -- the infinite destructive potential of the Death Star as well as the ravages on the planet Jeddha which is being strip-mined for kyber, destroying the very ancient and spiritual culture that made the application of kyber and the Jedi order possible in the first place. In the Jeddhean cargo pilot Bodhi Rook, albeit in the employment of the Empire, he finds the confidante and co-conspirator that he needs to get news of the Death Star’s construction and its fatal flaw into the hands of the Rebellion, and hopefully his daughter Jyn.

Galen Erso dies on Eadu during an attack by Rebel forces that had followed Jyn and her Rebel associate Cassian Andor who (unbeknownst to Jyn) had been tasked to kill Galen. He sees Jyn again before he dies in her arms, knowing his sacrifice was not in vain.

[[Galen Erso is from "Rogue One -- A Star Wars Story", and is the property of Lucasfilm. He appears here solely for the purpose of role-playing in milliways_bar, from which no profit whatsoever is being made.]]